PHILADELPHIA — Upon his election Benedict XVI was already an
old man with a global presence spanning decades. As a result there
are countless individuals who have had personal contact with him in
myriad surroundings before his becoming pope. Thousands will have
their own little anecdote, their own poignant vignette. However,
were they all told I believe that they would all reveal a man of
the same qualities: gentleness, thoughtfulness, generosity,
openness, an inveterate and consummate intellectual who loves
looking at perennial problems from ever-fresh perspectives. At 78,
by all accounts, those endearing traits are still amply evident.
Indeed, the ensemble of such enduring and defining traits in anyone
are what we call a person’s “character.”
When the publisher of The American Spectator asked if I
would write a brief reflection on Benedict XVI, whom I have been
privileged to know, I thought of a personal incident which involved
all three of us. It is hardly of any historic significance. It is
merely one of those countless tales which others could tell which
reveal the character of the man which few seem to know because of
the misrepresentations of him in the general media.
The Regnery publishing house has had a long and distinguished
history. Henry Regnery was a man of great cultivation and profound
intellectual curiosity and depth. Back in the fifties Regnery was
publishing European authors who were part of a remarkable Catholic
intellectual revival but who were thoroughly unknown to the
American reading public, whether they were Catholic or not. This
gentle, refined Quaker of firm conviction was open to all the
breadth and richness of Western thought which tapped into and
carried forward “the permanent things” without which no
civilization can stand.
One of the authors he published was a German theologian and
spiritual writer with the unlikely name, for a German, of Romano
Guardini. This was a man who had a profound influence on the German
Catholic youth movement, on liturgical reform, and a revitalized
Catholic academic life. As stated, Henry Regnery was not afraid to
publish what might be seen as remarkably esoteric to an American
audience, one of which being Guardini’s commentary on the Duino
Elegies of Rainier Maria Rilke!
One of Guardini’s more accessible and popular works was a
spiritual reflection on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus
Christ, entitled simply, The Lord. Henry Regnery’s son,
Al, had done a remarkable job revitalizing his father’s publishing
house after finishing a distinguished career of public service in
Wisconsin and in Washington, D.C. under Ronald Reagan. Al told me
that The Lord had been one of the consistently
best-selling books in the history of the company. They wanted to
republish the book, and Al asked if I would be willing to ask
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to write a foreword.
I thought it a rather bold request to make of a man who was the
former Archbishop of Munich and who was now serving as the Cardinal
Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the
Vatican secretariat which oversees fidelity to truth in theology
and morals throughout the entire Catholic world. It was a time of
widespread dissension and of radical movements in the Church which
challenged orthodoxy in both doctrine and practice. Nonetheless,
one of my guiding principles in life has always been: “Nothing
ventured, nothing gained.”
The next time I was in Rome I was granted an audience with
Cardinal Ratzinger. In the course of our conversation I told him of
the request from my friend to write a foreword to Guardini’s
The Lord. Much to my surprise, he said he would be pleased
to do so. Not to my surprise, I never received anything.
ABOUT EIGHT MONTHS LATER I found myself in Rome again and was once
more granted an audience. I read a book I had with me as I waited
for the meeting with the Cardinal, being moved from one richly
appointed ante-chamber to the next in the 16th century palazzo
housing the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. As I was
finally ushered into the Cardinal’s presence, he put his hands in
the air and greeted me with: “Ach, Herr Professor Haas, ich hab’
solch’ ein schlechtes Gewissen!” “Oh, Professor Haas, I have such a
guilty conscience.”
“You, Your Eminence?,” I said incredulously. “You have a bad
conscience?”
“Oh, yes,” he said. “I had promised you to write a foreword to
Guardini’s The Lord, and I did not do it.”
I responded that I was astonished that he had offered to do it
in the first place. I knew how busy he was; the host of issues he
had to grapple with were unimaginable.
“When are you leaving Rome?” he asked me in direct German
fashion. When I told him later that evening, he responded, “Ach,
that’s too bad. If it were tomorrow morning I would have had the
piece to you before you left.”
As it was, the Cardinal’s foreword to The Lord arrived
shortly after my return to the States. I translated it from the
German, and it was incorporated into the new edition of the
book.
This exchange is surely quite insignificant in the great scheme
of things. But one thing it does is to point to the humility and
the magnanimous and generous spirit of this man who is now Pope.
There was no need for him to perform this deed of kindness. I was
hardly a major benefactor who could help him advance his projects.
I was a simple academician with a request from a friend he did not
even know. But his generosity and his love of his mentor Romano
Guardini and his love of the intellectual life led him to respond
with the endearing and kindly spontaneity of a man who was truly
free in Christ.
The election of Benedict XVI has raised the stakes in the
culture wars significantly. His positions on radical feminism,
relativism, liturgical innovation, rampant secularism are well
known. Rather than cowering before the “gay” movement he referred
on Good Friday of the “filth” that had made its way even into the
priesthood and has not only opposed same sex “marriage” but has
insisted such individuals should not serve as teachers or youth
leaders. It is impossible to know how the struggle will play itself
out during his pontificate, but it is clear that he will wage the
battle with Christ-like firmness imbued with kindness and
gentleness. Those characteristics may disarm his opponents more
than any fire-breathing condemnations. They are the weapons of
Christ Himself.
